Leaving La Garrofa our first stop.....Malaga, for just one night. On our arrival here, after an uneventful but noisy journey, the chosen campsite was closed!!!!!!!!?????? Small print is a funny thing and so easily can be overlooked. Not being disheartened we move on with our heads held high and 200metres down the road - redemption. A very nice campsite just putting up it's Christmas lights and a site that had an "almost but not really" ensuite. They also take camping cheques, another bonus. Tired and exhausted after our previous late night/early morning we settled in for the night. We will look at all these surrounding places along the Costa del Sol on our way back from Portugal to La Garrofa towards the end of January.
However, to recap and to also explain our noisy journey we had discovered, at La Garrofa, that Molly was injured and sick.........her muffler had a split in it!!!!! In Spain this is hard, we now appreciate, to remedy and although we spent and arm and a leg to make her healthy nothing seemed to work. Bandages and gunk were not going to cut the mustard and we finally would roll into Albufuiera having lost the lot, plus one wheel trim, which incidentally we hope is at La Garrofa with our new ACSI book? (Malcolm take note here).
But I am getting ahead of myself we are still in Malaga and Gary is under Molly doing another fix - my MacGivor came with back up!!!!!!. This fix suggests you run the engine for half an hour after applying the bandage but to do that in a campsite is just selfish so that is a tomorrow job after leaving the campsite and, I can guarantee, on the side of the road???? Firstly though to get the backing strip off the bandage to expose its stickyness!!!!!! Geez Spanish people are clever or we are just plain inept and guess what?.........now it is pouring with rain.
So next morning we did as above, stopped by the side of the road for 30 minutes, then headed for Isla Cristina, again just for a stopover. After Camping La Garrofa not much stacked up here so, once again, we hunker down for just one night albeit on a mushy, muddy site. The sooner we get to our apartment the better.
Mmmmmmmm.........but things did not work out that well!!!!
Arriving at our apartment at the pre arranged time Gary was met by a very harrassed cleaner and a dirty, partially cleaned, cigarette smelling, cold, "could have been lovely" apartment which initially looked as though it was very much in the very wrong part of town. Negotiating an hours wait till the apartment would be ready we park Molly in the cold shadow of the apartment block and wait. Bad vibes are bouncing off the dashboard!!!!!!!
An hour later and still mayhem reigns but we start to move our necessities in. The oven is black inside and the cleaner is waiting for someone to come to unscrew the glass for cleaning and to look at an electricity point - something to do with the washing machine. It is getting dark and cold (winter here) and the place stinks of stale cigarettes. Finally we are on our own - not sure where everyone disappeared to - but we have been given a fresh air spray to combat the smell, have a filthy tablecloth on the dining room table, a pile of clean sheets, pillow cases and towels to use, 1 toilet roll, 2 squirts in the washing up liquid bottle, 1 squirt in the hand wash bottle but lots of hot, hot water and great Wifi. The apartment is freezing cold so we find an ineffectual 2 bar column heater in the wardrobe and plug that in and BINGO!.........the electricity goes. In the meantime we have been accosted by 2 Portugese policemen with regard to Molly being parked in the road outside the apartment...........someone has complained. This however is temporarily resolved when we explain we are renting an apartment in the complex for 1 month and Molly is our mode of transport........they will get back to us tomorrow - fingers crossed here for a good outcome but resolving the electricity problem is more complex. There is no switchboard in the apartment, no torch, 2 burnt out candles and we realise we have no way of contacting anyone. There is absolutely no information in the apartment re contact numbers etc and because there is no electricity there is no wifi. What to do?
A beer for Gary across the road where he hooks into complimentary wifi to contact Nelson who we booked the apartment through and a candle for me from Molly. Gary waits and waits and waits for a reply but none eventuates and he gives up and comes home. 2 hours later he tries again - yep another beer - but nothing. Asking the barman if he could use his phone to ring the number at the bottom of the email he informs Gary that Nelson lives in Canada and doesn't have a Portugese number. However Nelson's father David is in Albufeira at the moment and he knows his number.........god forbid this is getting soooo complicated. Gary explains we have no electricity so the barman rings David who tells us the Portugese power is weak and we have plugged in too many "things"..........one 2 bar column heater????!!!!! He will be over in 30mins.
To cut a long story short he arrives and turns the power back on at the switchboard in the next door studio apartment but it keeps tripping off. We have been without power now for 4 hours and are frozen solid. Ironically the food that should be in our state is rapidly defrosting - including our precious salmon. Eventually it stays on but we are instructed not to use anything so we just go to bed to get warm ....David will be back in the morning with an electrician. This he does and there is a fault.......with modifications recently done a nail or screw has gone through an electrical wire so the whole circuit is isolated. If we need to use the washing machine we have to use an extension lead and please remember electricity is expensive here in Portugal, the sun will warm the apartment?????.....mmmm......the only room to see the sun at all is the bedroom which incidentally is the only room to have a wall heater - very strange - and the walls are just painted concrete designed to keep the place cool in summer but not warm in winter. Oh, and by the way, Lena the cleaner lives on the floor below should you need anything.......better late than never to be told this.
Is there anything else we can do for you before we head back to Canada tomorrow? Yes please, we would love a clean tablecloth and a torch please. (We got the tablecloth but no torch) We continue to have ongoing problems with the electricity but Lena the cleaner or the people now in the studio next door are there to "reboot the mains" when necessary. At this point we begin to have a sly feeling that the studio apartment and our apartment share the same, small hot water supply as cold showers now seem to be the order of the day and we never have hot water!!!!! However Christmas Eve comes round, the studio tenants leave, Lena comes to clean, uses the studio washing machine and bang - the electricity goes again. Lena is going away for Christmas so she kindly leaves a studio key so we can continue to reboot - our cold water problem surprisingly is remedied with no tenants next door and for a few days hot showers are back.
Oh I forgot to mention that throughout this I have been hit with food poisoning which incapacitates me for a week and leaves me weak and grumpy as we try to begin to explore this very hilly township. And the dog downstairs should be shot.
Over the course of Christmas the electricity fails for no apparent reason on numerous occasions and I am fully prepared, after Christmas, to jump back in Molly and drive into the sunset. Gary wants to ride it out and in the end I agree. The policemen never reappear so we assume Molly is safe.
Albufiera is actually a very nice town and we are positioned perfectly on the edge of the old town, 5minutes walk to the beach and within easy reach of shops, supermarkets, restaurants, cheap Chinese shops and whatever else you might need. We are on the top of a hill and four floors up with no lift so coming home is sometimes quite hard but we have grown to like this place, Albufeira, over the one month period. We have also figured out how to keep ourselves warm in the evening in the apartment - light the gas oven and leave the door open - and how to preserve a supply of hot water for us which I am not authorised to talk about. Things are on the improve.
When we initially arrived here the town was empty and dead. On Christmas Eve everything changed and the place was invaded by the Brits. Restaurants and shops reopened, everywhere was extremely busy. The weekend after New Year everything changed again and there was a mass exodus. Restaurants and shops have gradually closed again and only a few tourists remain. When we leave on 12th January virtually the whole of the tourist industry in Albufeira will have shut down until March.
We have covered a lot of Albufeira on foot over a month. The weather has been fantastic and it has been much warmer out of the apartment than in. This has been our incentive to get out each day. Strolling towards the Marina one Sunday we stumbled across this most amazing restaurant where we had a home cooked roast dinner at a very reasonable price. This is where we decided to celebrate Christmas and where we had our Christmas dinner on Christmas Eve which included live entertainment and quite a few bottles of champagne. It was a fantastic evening although the walk home took over an hour due to several wrong turnings!!!!!!! Christmas Day morning father xmas found me and we drank champagne and ate chocolates together and Christmas Day evening we found a hotel with live music and we danced the night away. It was a good but different Christmas for us.
New Years Eve was live music and fireworks down on the beach but it was very chilly and very crowded when we got there so, after a while, we walked up the hill to the apartment and watched the fireworks from our bedroom window. Eat your heart out Auckland - these were spectacular and we had the best view in town.
As I said earlier we have walked for miles over this town, north, south, east and west and it is by no means small. We have eaten or drunk beer, coffee or wine in most of the retaurants here. We have shopped in most of the supermarkets here and strolled in both the new and old towns. Regardless of where we are and almost every day George and Mildred pop into view. Now George is a very loud, obese, British gentleman who uses a mobility scooter rather than his legs and Mildred is his equally loud wife who trundles along behind him in a daze but who does use her legs. We first met them at The Lemon Tree and had a passing chat there but seriously.........it has become quite spooky because whatever time of day, wherever we are G & M are there. Supermarket - half hours walk away - G & M! Middle of back street in Old town - G & M! Local newspaper shop - G & M pop up again! On our way to the Marina today - oh look - G & M!!!!!!! We will probably find them ensconced in Molly when we drive off tomorrow and his mobility scooter on her roof! Lol.
Anyway although Albufeira did not start well for us and the apartment is not the best we have decided we wouldn't have swapped this month for anything. We have met some amazing people, including the sister and her partner (Sue and Dave) of a couple (Alex and Dave)who we met earlier on in our travels and who are currently travelling NZ. We have had some great experiences here as well, have managed to relax on the beach with a book or two, stolen a few hearts to take away with us, twisted a few Portugese people round our little fingers in the course of having fun together, have laughed lots and almost cried a little and really wouldn't mind returning one day.
Tomorrow we pack up and leave and I guess we may be a little sad but move on we must. First stop Tavira to hopefully get Molly's muffler welded and to meet again with Sue and Dave.
We will bring you an update on Molly's condition just as soon as we can. Currently she is serious but stable.
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